


Keeping Your Scrapyard Seat Warm

by theprincessed



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Character Study, Coda, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 15:11:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5971498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprincessed/pseuds/theprincessed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tiny snapshot into what would happen if Robert was more involved in the scrapyard in Aaron's absence. </p><p>(Set after yesterday's episode - 10th February 2016).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping Your Scrapyard Seat Warm

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this was ENTIRELY unplanned and was also meant to be a lot funnier than it turned out. It appears that right now I can't write Robert Sugden without it being slightly melancholic, serious and some sort of character study. At least so far it's always about him being in love too lol.
> 
> Basically, I wrote this in one sitting after seeing tonight's episode. I loved Robert's scenes with Chas, so I guess this is my very quick take on what would happen if Robert kept his promise about looking after the scrapyard for Aaron. I didn't want to go into too much detail because I'm gonna get Jossed so hard - hence the format - but I don't care enough not to post it!
> 
> Hope you enjoy and hopefully there'll be something happier from me next time. Like PWP levels of happy...x
> 
> PS. Nicola is kinda random but not nonsensical in being there. I just wanted to write her because it's still amusing to me that Karl Davies' Robert slept with her and that from day one of _Ryan_ 's tenure, as a completely different actor, he's played off her so well. :')

**Day One**

After a few hours spent brooding in the Woolpack, Robert resigns himself to the fact that Chas won't be budging an inch in telling him where Aaron has gone. Not today, at least. Whilst that hurts, he chooses instead to focus on a new plan of action for now. He'll be back to the pub tomorrow to try again anyway. He's not giving up on getting the information out of Chas. He's not giving up on Aaron.

Except, as he's sending Aaron a more supportive text than the pile of 'where are you??' messages he's sent all morning, Robert realises that his determination to keep the scrapyard ticking over as a favour has a few flaws. Some small, some not so much.

He downs the last of his pint and decides that there's no time like the present, trying not to let it get to him how Chas seems so relieved to finally see him leave. 

The pub kitchen had been empty when he'd checked to see if Victoria was on shift, but he knew she probably hadn't gone far because Marlon hadn't been there either. The thought of Chas trying (okay, and failing) to cope with both by herself brings a faint smile to Robert's face, though he quickly hides it as he dials Victoria's number and heads towards Keeper's Cottage. With no answer from her phone, he uses his key to open the door...and instantly regrets it.

“Oh my god, my eyes!” he cries, instantly covering his face as he walks into the living room to see his sister and her husband post-coital with only a heap of blankets protecting their modesty.

“What the hell, man!” Adam shouts back, springing up, face like thunder, amidst Victoria's mortified exclamations of her brother's name.

“I thought you were working today!” Robert protests.

“I'm on my lunch break! What're you doin' here, ya idiot?”

Robert chances a look at them, to find his sister haphazardly dressed again in her chef's whites and Adam only shirtless, still looking grumpy at being interrupted.

“I need help.”

“I could've told ya that ages ago,” Adam mutters under his breath.

Robert pounces on Victoria's eye roll, used to their sniping since they tentatively still all live together, and gives Adam a pointed look, tipping his chin towards the door. “I need a minute with Vic, if you don't mind. Alone.”

Adam obeys with a loud sigh and kisses his wife goodbye because he has to get back to work himself, now that it's just him doing the heavy lifting at the scrapyard. Robert takes a seat on the settee before thinking better of it after what he just walked in on and drops into the nearest armchair.

“Go on then. What's so important that you needed Adam out of the way to tell me?”

He briefly thinks about his latest run-in with Chas, but suspects that Victoria already knows the depth of feeling that has grown for him towards Aaron. She is his very intuitive sister, after all.

“Ah s'nothing,” he grins, “I just like making him think he's missing out on something. Y'know, that makes him very annoyed. Could be useful in the future.”

“Robert, stop,” she admonishes, but her eyes are sparkling.

“Fine, listen. I do actually need a favour. Is there any chance I could borrow some overalls? I'd ask Andy, it's just I'm not sure we're at the borrowing stuff stage yet,”

Victoria's face softens. “He'll get there, Rob.” she says quietly. “I dunno why you're asking me though. The only thing I have is these!”

He watches her point to her chef's whites and leans forward. “What about Adam, eh? I bet you do his washing for him anyway,”

“Oi, cheeky!” she smacks his arm as she moves past him, hopefully to where her husband keeps his work clothes. “Why don't you ask him then?”

“Because I'm asking you, and besides, I wanna see the look on his face when I turn up in them.”

“Robert,” she starts, wary, standing by the washing machine as he joins her in the doorway, “what're you gonna do?”

He grins. “Oh, I'm sure you'll hear all about it tonight. Now do you have some or not?”

+

Robert squares his shoulders, takes a deep breath in and opens the door to the portacabin. Adam is sat with his feet propped on his desk, a mug in one hand and a magazine spread over his lap. He doesn't look up when Robert enters.

“Well, if that's how you greet all your customers, I think I can guess who's actually the one that makes this business successful,” he snipes, waiting for him to pay attention.

“What d'you want, Robert?” he asks in a flat voice, “Kicked me out of my home and now you're gonna kick me out of work?”

“Actually, I was thinking quite the opposite.” Adam finally raises his head, intrigued. Robert throws his arms out to his sides, decked out in the most casual clothes he owns, a pair of Adam's overalls thanks to Victoria and a high-vis jacket. Getting dressed, he had wondered whether Aaron would find him attractive in these like he kinda did with him, his glorious little bit of rough, but the thought just made him sad. Aaron was gone. For now. And Robert meant what he said to Chas. “Meet your new workmate!”

Following a stunned silence, Adam scoffs. “You? But you're just an investor! You gave us the money to start up, that's all. And even that was a flippin' lie,”

Robert feels his jaw tense. “No. No, it wasn't. To begin with, yeah, sure, it was something of a cover, but I believed in Aaron and I was proved right. It's a shame you don't seem to share the same work ethic as him.”

Adam springs to his feet in much the same manner he had at home, except this time he gets in Robert's face. “You what? Not that it's anything to do with you, but I was on a break.”

Robert raises an eyebrow. “Straight from the one you just had with Vic at home? Business must be real slow then,”

“Just get lost, Robert,”

“No.” he puts a hand to Adam's chest and gingerly pushes him back a step. “I told Chas that I'd keep a closer eye on the scrapyard 'til Aaron comes back. She can't stop me and neither can you.”

“Comes back? What d'ya mean 'comes back'? Where's he gone?”

Robert rifles through a few papers on Aaron's desk, tidying up because these two aren't exactly known for being house-proud. He sits back in the chair, hands folded across his stomach, a little bit of the smugness of old creeping in. Adam's just so easy to wind up. “Oh, he didn't tell you either? What's it like to not be as special as you thought? He's left the village and I don't know where he is. Chas won't tell me, so I'm helping out here in the meantime. To prove to her how much he means to me. I care about his successes and that includes this business, the business I helped set up.”

“Whatever,” Adam huffs.

“Great!” Robert retorts brightly, rubbing his hands together. “Where shall we start?”

Adam opens the door to begrudingly lead him out when something catches his eye. “Wait a minute,”

Robert schools his expression into innocence. “What?”

“Are those - ”he squints, at the frayed edge of a pocket on one side of Robert's borrowed overalls. “Are those _mine_?”

Vic had told him how Adam had tried to stitch up the torn fabric himself, a casualty of a rogue piece of heavy, rusty piping, but had eventually given it up as a lost cause. Sewing was hard. It's why Robert had chosen these ones, knowing that whilst he might think of Adam as a bit too stupid for the likes of his brilliant sister, the bloke isn't blind. 

“Well, I had to borrow some from somewhere,” he says, loving every second.

What he's not prepared for is Adam to growl unhappily and storm out of the portacabin, gravel crunching noisily under his boots, as Robert fruitlessly tries to call him back. His face had been a picture though!

+

**Day Two**

Robert went home the night before to Adam and Victoria already having their tea. They were silent until Adam caught sight of him. 

After his little display that afternoon, Robert had chalked the day up as a bust and cut his losses, heading back to the pub for another quick pint and some sympathy from Diane. If he got the chance to needle Chas about Aaron's whereabouts again, he saw it as a bonus.

“I can't believe you lent him my stuff,” Adam had said to Victoria, sat across from him. From their body language, it seems they'd been talking about Robert long before he'd returned.

“I thought my ears were burning!” he announced loudly, striding in. “Any tea for me? I've been working hard all day y'know, unlike some,”

“Do you ever shut up?” Adam snapped.

“Not when there's still plenty to say, no. Like how you left me to deal with the scrapyard by myself for the rest of the day. Bet he didn't tell you that, eh, Vic?”

“You said you'd done your last job for the day and wanted to come home early to surprise me,” Victoria said, sounding hurt, before she turns in her seat to face Robert in the tiny kitchen. “And what're you playing at, Rob? This is Adam and Aaron's business, not yours.”

“I know that, but I meant what I said to Chas and I'll tell it to both of you again now. I'm keeping it going until he gets back. He's gonna need something good to focus on and I intend to make sure it's that.”

Which is how he has returned to the scrapyard, a new day to start afresh.

He's just getting to grips with the invoices – they really need clearer in and out trays – and psyching himself up to make some calls and start the heavy lifting when the door opens. Adam hasn't arrived yet, although Robert is early. Maybe he's staging a protest. Well, it won't work. Nothing will, not until Aaron comes back. Robert's always been stubborn.

“Oh, hi,” Nicola says, confused. “Didn't expect to see you here,”

He sighs. “Why has everyone forgotten that if it wasn't for me there wouldn't _be_ a business?”

“I dunno, maybe because you cheated on your wife with your business partner like a CEO with his secretary?”

He clenches his fist around the pen in his hand, simmering about her lack of tact. “It was never like that,” he says tightly. “Besides, I've changed and I'm gonna prove it to everybody.”

“You do that,” she nods.

Robert doesn't stop her from taking up residence on Adam's desk and for a second it feels like he's at Home Farm again, feet away from tolerating her and wishing he could get away and just be with Aaron, no stress. He eyeballs his phone, willing it to ring to give him something to do. Eventually, he decides to create work and have a potter around out the front. There's got to be something that needs sorting. He's nearly free when Nicola speaks once more.

“Did you always bat for both teams then? Even when I popped your cherry?”

It's the last thing he wants to think or talk about, having sex with Nicola of all people, but he had only been sixteen years old and whilst she does have a big mouth, it could prove useful. Maybe she'll tell the whole village that Robert is serious about proving himself to Aaron Livesy and everyone he cares about.

He turns around, “I don't know, Nicola, maybe. I just never thought of acting on it until I left. Wasn't exactly brimming with options back then, was I? Not to mention that it would've been around the village in a nanosecond, just like when I slept with you. Happy now?”

“Hmm.” she chews on the end of her pen, thoughtful. “So, is Aaron your type? He seems miserable to me, but maybe he's a bit of a goer in bed. The unlikely ones usually are.”

Robert's leaning menacingly over the desk in three strides. “Don't ever talk about him like that. You've got no idea what he's been through.”

A smile twitches onto her face and he blinks, wrong-footed by her lack of flinching. It's like knowing him as a kid has taken away any threat he could pose. “Then again, _you_ weren't half bad, if I remember right, tragic tearaway teen that you were,” she breathes. “Ah, sometimes I miss my wild days. Now it's all kids and business and cleaning up after Jimmy. Do you miss it, Robert?”

She trails a finger down onto his t-shirt covered chest, through the open buttons of his overalls, until he squirms away and stands to his full height. “No, I don't, and the sooner I prove to everyone how much I'm here for Aaron, the better.”

“Alright, don't get your knickers in a twist, Tom Daley,” she sniffs, since he's ended her harmless fun, “I'm sure you'll be very happy together.”

“I'm counting on it. Now, if you'll excuse me, some of us have proper work to do.”

He leaves before she can remind him of his former pen-pusher career, a fact that only makes him think of how much he flirted with Aaron the day he helped Andy on Butler's.

+

**Day Seven**

A week on from his pledge, Robert and Adam are working together at last. It's awkward and full of bickering, but Adam does seem to be thawing slowly. His offer of a handshake once in David's grows to one every time they make a deal, stilted but real, even through the thick gloves both of them are wearing. Something that Robert hadn't really factored in to his plan was how happy Victoria would be about his stalemate with Adam and having to be around them a lot since he was also living at Keeper's, he had to admit that Adam did treat his sister right. He hadn't always, as recently as the whole thing with Vanessa, but Aaron had kind of made everyone around him refocus their priorities,including Adam. It was the only good thing to come out of this mess. That and Robert realising just how deep his feelings ran.

“Can I ask you something?”

Robert blinks and looks up from where he'd been dismantling a mini fridge, just about hearing Adam over the din of metal. He wipes his sweaty forehead with the arm of his jacket. “I don't know, can you?” Adam looks like he's going to give up, so he rushes to apologise, “Er, sorry, sorry, it's a reflex. Aaron's used to it.”

“Yeah, I'm sure,” he half-sneers, but Robert doesn't rise to the bait. “Talking of Aaron – when did you know?”

“When did I know what?”

“That you and our Aaron, that it was more than just...y'know?”

Robert puts down the spanner in his hand and puts them on his hips instead, smirking. “Sex? You can say the word, Adam,”

“I don't wanna think about my best mate doin' it, thanks,” he shudders, “Least of all with you,”

“I think I've got it worse with you and _my little sister_ ,”

There's a pause before they find themselves smiling briefly at each other. It isn't quite the jovial banter he has with Aaron and it probably never will be because he and Adam are vastly different people but, these days, being civil doesn't seem like such a terrible prospect. A lot of things don't appear that way anymore. Once terrifying and almost unacceptable even in his own head, Robert has declared Aaron his boyfriend (to get his way, but declared nonetheless), told Aaron he still loves him, quietly supported him through his situation with Gordon thus far and told Chas that he intends to prove himself to all who'll listen. He's come a long way already.

“I knew ages ago,” he confesses, “It feels like a blur now, because I wasn't ready to admit it. I couldn't tell anyone, so nobody knew. It suited me back then, but not anymore. That's why I told him how I feel.”

Adam raises his eyebrows, surprised, and turns to lean on the scrap he's breaking down. “You mean, you've already told him?”

Robert scuffs his boot against the gravel, suddenly shy and a bit lost without Aaron to cut this short with some sort of distraction. It feels weird to tell this to Adam, but it's a pattern that's been emerging since he started to properly work at the scrapyard. It's almost cathartic, telling people how he _truly_ feels instead of burying his head in the sand to suit his situation and his lifestyle. It's one of the things he has in common with Aaron – they were both faking it. Aaron was bottling it up like previous form and Robert was partly living a lie. He loved Chrissie once, but it couldn't compare to how deeply he felt for Aaron, otherwise he wouldn't have had an affair.

“Yeah, I had to.” he shrugs, his heart jackhammering inside his chest, “I probably had rubbish timing, but he'd just told me what Gordon had done and it hit me – he needed to know that I was truly on his side and that included that I still loved him. Of course he didn't exactly believe me, why should he, but that's what this is all about.” he gestures to the scrapyard at large, “I'm doing this for him. We need to talk, properly, but I'm in it for the long haul.”

He blows out a breath when he's finished and struggles to meet Adam's eye. The other man is quiet and Robert's telling himself that his opinion doesn't matter (it's not like he's Aaron best mate and life would be easier or anything) when Adam picks up a heap of copper wiring balanced on top of a tyre.

“Just don't muck it up this time,” he says as he walks past, “Or I'll kill ya.”

Robert snorts and takes it for what it is. An understanding of sorts. A beginning to something resembling tolerance, a plain of existence he's reluctantly already reached now that Victoria is married to him.

+

**Day Fourteen**

Robert crawls into bed with a pleased sigh. Small and owned by his sister, things could be better for him, except there was something comforting about still coming home to a full house, even though he'd left his other life behind. There was still no sign or communication from Aaron and he respected the need to get away, even if Chas had kept her promise of keeping schtum and he'd continued on at the scrapyard like he said he would.

Tonight, he'd had a few beers at the Woolpack, propping up the bar and regaling Diane with every mistake Adam had made in the last fortnight whilst he wasn't around to hear it. It made her laugh and after the tough personal time she'd had recently, anything Robert could do to put a smile on his stepmum's face was a good thing in his book.

So, his forgives his brain for being a bit slow when his phone chimes with a text message. He'd thought about leaving it until the morning and shut his eyes for a moment before he scrambles to grab it from the bedside table and sit up at the same time. He leaves the light off because it's the dead of night, the screen far too bright as he thumbs into his messages. His face splits into a grin as his hope comes true, Aaron's name and a message in black and white on the screen.

**Aaron:**  
_I'm coming home._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, lovelies x
> 
> I'm on tumblr at [theprincessed](http://www.theprincessed.tumblr.com). :)


End file.
